About the artist
1892–1973, lived and worked in Chicago, Illinois
Henry Darger, whose mysterious life and enigmatic art have inspired everyone from poet John Ashbery to musician Snakefinger, is the author of what—at over 15,000 pages—is by some reckonings the longest work of fiction ever written, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion. A kind of mythic allegory of hermaphroditic child endangerment and redemption, this complex and violent epic is heavily illustrated with large-scale scrolls that describe Darger’s fantasy cartography, enumerate his invented human military forces and hybrid creatures, and above all, memorialize his beloved Vivian Girls, the plucky heroines that likewise appear in other of his novels and journals. Shortly before Darger’s death in 1973, the landlord of the Chicago apartment in which he’d lived for over forty years discovered this remarkable manuscript, the stunning visual achievements of which have received more attention than its literary content or prose style.
A solitary and profoundly Catholic man, Darger seems to have sought little contact with the outside world beyond daily Mass, maintaining an invisibility that may reflect his difficult and abusive childhood. In 1905, Darger was institutionalized as feeble-minded, finally escaping the brutal Lincoln, Illinois, asylum three years later to end up in Chicago. He eked out a living as a janitor and dishwasher in Catholic hospitals, where he remained for the rest of his life except for a short stint in the U.S. Army. Darger devoted his free time to his masterwork In the Realms of the Unreal, which he limned with tracings, photo enlargements, and collage, brilliantly painted in a variety of media. He proved a master colorist and a genius of narrative composition. Battle scenes and idyllic landscapes, sometimes in uneasy simultaneity, provided the exquisite backdrops for the surreal adventures of his threatened children. Certain overarching concerns––with innocence and evil, his Catholic faith, and weather systems, for instance––pervade his sumptuously detailed fantasy world, which remains unequaled in imaginative scope. Some viewers are troubled by the occasionally disturbing violent psychosexual imagery, but Darger’s artistic accomplishment is hard to deny. His work, among the most valuable in the self-taught sphere, can be found in important collections worldwide.
—Brendan Greaves
Above: Photo © Kiyoko Lerner
Bibliography
Altered States, Alternate Worlds: A Symposium. (videorecording) Produced by Creative Growth Art Center. Directed by Mauzmir Communications. Oakland, CA: Creative Growth Art Center, 1992. (Tape #3)
Art Outsider et Folk Art des Collections de Chicago. Paris: Halle Saint Pierre, 1998.
Anderson, Brooke Davis. Darger: The Henry Darger Collection at the American Folk Art Museum. New York: American Folk Art Museum, in association with Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2001.
Ashbery, John. Girls on the Run: A Poem. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
Biesenbach, Klaus, ed. Henry Darger: Disasters of War. Berlin: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, in association with Distributed Art Publishers, [2004].
Bonesteel, Michael. Henry Darger: Art and Selected Writings. New York: Rizzoli, 2000.
Cotter, Holland. “A Life’s Work in Word and Image, Secret Until Death,” New York Times, January 24, 1997.
De Carlo, Tessa. “The Bizarre Vision of a Reclusive Master.” New York Times, January 12, 1997.
Hartigan, Lynda. Made With Passion: The Hemphill Folk Art Collection in the National Museum of American Art. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990.
Henry Darger. New York: Rosa Esman Gallery, in association with Phyllis Kind Gallery, 1987.
Henry Darger. A film by Bruno Decharme; executive producer Barbara Safarova, with the help of Nicolas Batailler, Marie-Laure Bonduel, Jean-Michel Fleury, Jean-Louis Lanoux, Kiyoko Lerner, and Jennifer Pinto Safian; 10 min., color, produced by abcd, 2003.
In the Realms of the Unreal: The Mystery of Henry Darger. (Videorecording) A Diorama Films Production. An ITVS presentation. Produced by Susan West; a film by Jessica Yu, writer, director, 81 min., color. New York: Wellspring, 2004.
Let It Shine: Self-Taught Art from the T. Marshall Hahn Collection. Atlanta, GA: High Museum of Art, in association with the University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, MS, 2001.
MacGregor, John M. Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal. New York: Delano Greenidge Editions, 2002.
______. “Henry Darger: Art by Adoption,” Raw Vision, 13 (Winter 1995–1996): 26–35.
Merchant, Natalie. Motherland. (Audio CD) New York: Atlantic Records Group (WEA), 2001. www.nataliemerchant.com or www.wmg.com.
Morris, Randall. “Good vs. Evil in the World of Henry Darger,” The Clarion 11 (Fall 1986): 30–35.
“Nathan and Kiyoko Lerner Foundation.” Raw Vision 24 (Fall 1998): n.p.
Prokopoff, Stephen S. Henry Darger: The Unreality of Being. Iowa City: University of Iowa Museum of Art, 1996.
______. “Henry Darger: The Unreality of Being: On Preparing, Organizing and Mounting a Darger Exhibition.” Folk Art, vol. 21, no. 4 (Winter 1996/1997): 46–53.
Russell, Charles, ed. Self-Taught Art: The Culture and Aesthetics of American Vernacular Art. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001.
Self-Taught Artists of the 20th Century: An American Anthology. New York: Museum of American Folk Art, in association with Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998.
Transmitters: The Isolate Artist in America. Philadelphia: Philadelphia College of Art, 1981.
Tree of Life: The Inaugural Exhibition of the American Visionary Art Museum. Baltimore: American Visionary Art Museum, 1996.
Urgent Messages. Chicago: Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chicago Public Library, 1987.
Vine, Richard. “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” Art in America, vol. 86, no.1 (January 1998): 72–79.
A World of Their Own: Twentieth Century American Folk Art. Newark, NJ: The Newark Museum, 1995.
Writers on Artists. (In Association with Modern Painters.) London: Dorling Kindersley Publishers, 2001.